Paid In Blood
by RisenGrave
Summary: Of questionable sanity, Maeric leaves his house and the memories it contains and spends the night on the shore, trying to find answers. When the answer comes, it is something that will damage his soul beyond the unthinkable that has already been inflicted


**A.N:  
This story originally started out as a descriptive writing piece for an English assignment, hence all the flowery language. This is just a quick thing I wrote out in an hour or so and haven't done any proof reading. But I get the feeling that if I change too much about the story, it'll loose the feel I wanted it to have originally. Though intended as a one-shot, this story can be obviously enlarged on and if you wish it to be so, please say so in your review, if you post one. Happy reading, and I hope you enjoy the story  
RG**

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The raging winds tore Maeric's cloak from his hand but he barely noticed. Too many thoughts were rushing through his mind, like leaves borne on the winds of time. The roar of the gale-driven waves breaking over the ancient stones filled the air till you could not have heard somebody yelling but a pace away. No sane being would travel to this place. It suited him perfectly. Wind-whipped clouds flew by overhead and the long grass around Maeric's feet followed in rippling waves.

He remembered coming to this place once as a child, brought by his mother to look across the sea, to imagine what lay just over the horizon when he asked where his father went when he left. He remembered the peaceful, swaying green grass, looking almost like a single living being breathing in time with the whispering breeze. He remembered the vast expanse of the ocean, small waves breaking gently on the shore and the sun over head making the water glisten. There hadn't been a cloud in the sky that day, it had been beautiful, and the young man had just stood there for at least an hour gazing upon the beauty. A beauty he was never destined to see again in this life. Now the grass was yellow and brown, wilted and dying. The wind tore at it like a ravenous wolf at the corpse of a freshly felled dear, making what had once seemed like a peaceful being look like the death throes of a tortured soul. The thought brought him to reality like a sharp slap.

He could remember, not two hours gone, seeing his father bleed out in the door way, trying even in death to protect his family. He could remember, not two hours gone, the screams of his young sister as a fate worse than death was visited upon her. The thought turned his vision red and his knuckles strained painfully against the solid steel-inlaid leather gauntlets he wore. But anger was futile, he could not kill the same person twice. Raising his hand he gazed long into the palm of his hand, as if seeking some answers within the blood smeared across his palms and fingers. As if even nature did not wish him to find these answers, rain lashed against his hand and mingled with the blood, running in gory rivulets down the creases in the glove. An image flashed in his mind's eye. Then another, and another, till a jerky, grotesque show flitted through his head. The door splintered and Maeric's father stood, speaking words that his fevered mind could no longer give voice to. His father stood with sword in hand in the door, furiously hacking at whoever lay beyond, stepping over and on the macabre rug that now stained the floor red like it wasn't there, screaming at his family to run, to hide. His father lay dead and a shadow crossed the threshold, large and deformed, followed by its ever-present other half. Another like it followed, then one different. Smaller, but still well muscled, lithe and powerful with a sword dark as night within its hands. It Smiled at Maeric and raised its sword, pointing it at his chest and spoke with a voice like crumbling stone on stone

"Let the fun begin." Maeric blinked away the rain from his eyes, trying to clear the blurred images in his brain, but they refused to comply. The next clear scene in his head was different. His mother and sister lay chained to beds, stripped naked. Alienya, her 15 year old body not even fully formed yet, quivered in fear and moaned softly, turning her head from side to side as though if she couldn't see what was happening to her mother it wasn't happening. Maeric stood in the doorway to the room facing the back of two large brutes, almost filling the small bedroom that had been his. Loosing a primal scream he launched himself at them, his curled fist slammed into the spine of the first, driven by the force of large, strong 19 year old frame, it sent the brute to the floor, whimpering as Maeric grasped the tuft of hair jutting from the top of his head and wrenched it back until he looked into his eyes. With a low growl he rammed his fingers into those eyes and pulled up with all his strength. The head split like an over-ripe grape. The look of utter terror in those eyes was the last thing he remembered before the next scene. His mother and sister lying there, throats slashed almost surgically, blood still flowing over their bodies, mixing with the stale sweat and making the room smell like an abattoir. The dark, congealing blood of the brutes made the trek from door to bed like walking through mud. Running his hand over his face, Maeric let out a deep sigh, all anger gone from within him, all rage, all fear. Nothing remained but a cold void within him. Sitting on the top of one of the many rocks around him, he laid his head in his hands and shut down.

Consciousness returned slowly, starting with an insistent, sharp pain... somewhere. This pain was followed by a deep breath, which ended with a sharp intake of breath as the pain intensified. At this stage his brain clicked on to what was happening. A bitter chill bit easily through the toughened leather that Maeric still wore, turning his limbs to ice. He took another breath and felt his lungs scream in protest at the cold in the air, filling his chest with the pain that had brought him back to the world of the living.

Standing slowly he was overwhelmed. This was a side of his home he had never seen. The full moon stood uncontested in the night sky, not a single cloud blocked the view. The vast expanse of the heavens seemed to open up before him, the stars seeming like needle holes in a black sheet spread across the night sky, reflected like pearls in the black depths of the ocean. The rippling waves sent shivers through the legions of earth-bound stars, like silver-sown cloth rippling on the curves of a beautiful woman. Gone was the howling winds of earlier. Not a breeze stirred the limp, brown, ice coated blades of grass. The moon glittered on the ice like the light of the Creator herself shining on the shards of a broken soul.

A look crossed Maeric's face and he knew what he had to do. Earlier, he had been driven by rage, he had killed, torn off half of a head with his bare hands, he had been blunt, obvious and had likely gotten his mother and sister killed, though whether his sister would have liked to live after what had happened to her was debatable. When he had been driven by righteous rage, he had been like the storm of the day; howling winds and pounding waves, rain driven like frozen needles. No peace, pure chaos, and all that could be achieved was destruction, death, pain. He needed to be like this night, cold and bitter, not shoved in your face but waiting for your grip to slip once and sliding in like a knife between the ribs. He had to be cold, he had to be calculating. Like the ice cracking beneath his feet, he knew that taking his revenge, his families revenge would break him, but it had to be done. The night had driven the clouds from the skies and this hardness that Maeric was beating into his very soul would clear his mind of the turmoil of a storm, let him see everything with crisp and startling clarity, but unlike the night, there would be no dawn for Maeric, while the light survived the night and eventually the sun breaks through the chill and sheds light on a new beginning, the night would turn his soul to ice and long before dawn broke, would shatter it. Striding with a new purpose in his mind, he listened to the crack of ice beneath his feet. Reaching out with his mind, he felt it brush that of another. After a grim greeting, a silence, images and scents and sounds flew through his head, the smell of blood, the sound of prey's last cry, the taste of warm flesh in your mouth and the burn of your muscles after the long run with your pack.  
We Come Brother  
We Hunt


End file.
